Why Can't the Conservatives Quit Bruce Carson?

The minority Conservative government downplayed new revelations Wednesday that a former adviser to the prime minister facing allegations of influence-peddling continued to be called upon by federal cabinet ministers even after he had supposedly left Stephen Harper's office to work for an academic think tank and an oilpatch industry lobby group.

Liberal environment critic Gerard Kennedy said that Bruce Carson's participation as the only non-government official at an April 28, 2009 Washington meeting between former environment minister Jim Prentice and U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu was one of several assignments the former Conservative staffer received after supposedly leaving government. Carson was later among four delegates chosen to represent Harper himself at another international climate change summit, five months later, Kennedy said in the House of Commons.